Mike Browning

Tag: communication

  • “You’re Right”

    “You’re Right”

    I don’t mean it.

    I’ve said it plenty of times and almost never meant it.

    Usually I’m on the wrong side of a desk somewhere. Buying a vehicle and sitting through the extended warranty pitch. Standing in a furniture store while somebody walks me through the protection plan…the one that covers everything except whatever eventually happens to it.

    I’ve already decided. I’m not doing it. Decided a while back, quietly, and now I’m just looking for a clean way out of the conversation.

    And the man keeps going. He’s got reasons. Some of them are decent reasons.

    So I tell him he’s right.

    Not because he moved me. Because I want it to be over.

    Then I read Never Split the Difference and found out that’s a known thing, and that it has a matching pair.

    Chris Voss says “you’re right” is the one you don’t want. When somebody hands you that, you’ve lost them. They’ve stopped arguing, they’d like you to stop talking, and nothing has changed except they’re now looking for the door.

    What you want to hear is “that’s right.”

    One word different. Opposite meanings. “That’s right” comes out of somebody when you’ve just described their own situation back to them better than they’d have put it themselves. It isn’t agreement with your argument. It’s recognition. And you only get there by shutting up long enough to have actually listened.

    Once you know the difference you start hearing it everywhere. My wife. My kids. Anybody who’s ever wrapped up a conversation with me a little earlier than I expected.

    The catch is you have to give up being the smartest man in the room to get there. You don’t get to lead with what you know, which is generally the whole reason you opened your mouth. Most people can’t stand that. Which is exactly why it keeps working for the ones who can.

    I still tell the warranty guy he’s right. Some things you don’t fix.

    But I quit taking it as a compliment when somebody says it to me.

    Never Split the Difference is full of these. Small distinctions that sound like nothing until you catch one happening to you in real time.

    Get it Here

    PS- That link goes through Amazon, and I’m an affiliate. Doesn’t cost you a dime more, but if you click through and buy the book, or anything else while you’re there, I get a small commission.

  • Nobody Ever Wins an Argument

    Nobody Ever Wins an Argument

    (They just get tired of having it.)

    A few years ago I decided to quit discussing politics and current events with other people. For the most part. I still fall into it from time to time, but usually just end up realizing I wasted my time.

    Not because I ran out of things to say. I just noticed something.

    It doesn’t matter how good my facts are, how airtight the logic, or how many times I’ve clearly won the exchange in my own head on the drive home. The other person never once said, “Huh, good point. I’ve changed my mind.”

    They found a different fact. Or decided mine didn’t count. Or got quiet and waited for their turn to talk again.

    It happens with sports too, although the stakes are usually lower. Somebody’s convinced the game is rigged against their team, their quarterback is elite (or he sucks), or the coach should’ve been fired two years ago.

    You can show them the stats. Use logic. Doesn’t matter. They’ve already got their own stats, and if they don’t, they’ll find some. Or make them up.

    I used to think this meant people were just bad at arguing, or too stubborn to admit when they were wrong.

    Then I read Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss.

    Voss spent years as an FBI hostage negotiator, and one of the things he learned was that moving a conversation forward often had less to do with presenting the better argument than making the other person feel understood.

    He’d say things like, “It sounds like you’re feeling backed into a corner,” and then wait. He wasn’t agreeing with them. He wasn’t trying to solve anything yet. He was naming what he thought the other person was feeling and giving them a chance to correct him if he had it wrong.

    And being wrong wasn’t necessarily a problem. When someone corrected him, they were explaining themselves. Now they weren’t defending themselves against his argument. They were helping him understand their position.

    There’s a difference between winning a conversation and actually moving one forward.

    Most every argument I’ve ever “won” ended with the other person more locked in, not less. But when I name what I think someone is thinking or feeling, without immediately trying to fix or correct it, the conversation usually goes somewhere.

    That’s a strange thing to learn from a guy who negotiated with people holding hostages. Stranger still is how often it applies to conversations that have nothing to do with a crisis at all.

    After Jim Camp’s Start With No, Never Split the Difference has probably helped me more with negotiation than any other book. They aren’t the same system, but they’re similar enough that a lot of Voss’s ideas fit naturally with Camp’s.

    Like I’ve said several times, basically everything involves negotiation. So if you get better at it, you improve your life across the board.

    If you’ve read Start With No, I’d recommend Never Split the Difference next.

    Is it crazy to think it’s worth improving a skill that touches almost every area of your life?

    Get It Here

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  • My Wife Thought It Was Magic

    My Wife Thought It Was Magic

    And maybe it sort of was.

    Most people think negotiation is something that happens in land deals. Maybe car deals too.

    It’s not.

    Trying to get your kid to clean their room is negotiation. Deciding where to eat is negotiation. Getting time off work for an appointment is negotiation. Most of life is negotiation whether we realize it or not.

    Improving your negotiation skills is probably the most high leverage way to improve your life overall. It touches everything.

    Most people picture a great negotiator as the guy at the dealership. Pushy. A little slick. Leaning on pressure and urgency because that’s the only lever he knows how to pull.

    Sometimes that works.

    But ask yourself how you feel after most car-buying experiences. Even if you like the car, you’re often thinking, I’m never buying from that guy again.

    That’s the problem with pressure tactics. Even when they work, they burn bridges. You win the deal in front of you and lose the next ten.

    Jim Camp’s system from Start With No is different, though I wouldn’t call it the opposite of that. It’s not weak, and it’s not caving in to get to yes faster. Weak gets eaten alive by anyone with real leverage. What it does is take a lot of the tension out of the room without giving up your position. Deals close easier. People stay friendly afterward.

    Sometimes it works so well it’s almost unsettling.

    A while back my wife bought something online from a company that was very clear about its policy. No refunds. No exceptions.

    Naturally, the item broke almost immediately.

    She emailed them and got exactly the response you’d expect. They pointed to the policy and politely told her no.

    She was frustrated.

    I looked at the exchange, wrote a short response, and told her to send it. Maybe four sentences.

    She read it and said there was no way it would work, but she sent it anyway, and the refund was approved almost immediately.

    What amused me wasn’t the refund. It was what happened afterward.

    She looked at me suspiciously and asked:

    “Have you been using this on me?”

    I assured her I only use my powers for good.

    One of the reasons I like Jim Camp’s work is that his system doesn’t rely on pressure, clever arguments, or trying to talk circles around people. In fact, a lot of the time it involves talking less, not more.

    That’s harder than it sounds.

    If you’ve never read Start With No, it’s worth your time.

    Get it here

    P.S. The link goes through Amazon and I’m an affiliate. It doesn’t cost you anything extra, but if you buy the book (or anything else while you’re there), I get a small commission.

  • Being Impressive Can Be Overrated

    Being Impressive Can Be Overrated

    Trying to make the other guy see how great you are isn’t always the best strategy.

    I told this story on here a while back, but a lot of you weren’t reading yet, and I think it’s worth revisiting.

    Not long after the 2008 mortgage crisis, there were vacant lots everywhere and only a handful of buyers. I represented one of the few builders looking to acquire. We sat down with an investment group that was holding lots, to see if there was a fit.

    Realistically, a deal probably wasn’t happening regardless. The timing was wrong, the housing type probably wasn’t a fit, and pricing for builders and sellers was miles apart.

    But this meeting was doomed before anyone opened their mouth.

    The guy leading the investors was sharp. Sharp enough that he couldn’t stand to let it go unnoticed.

    Our builder’s CEO was the same. Two smart guys, both determined to be the one everybody left the room thinking about.

    They weren’t negotiating so much as performing. The rest of us just sat there and watched until the end, then went on our way.

    Not long after, my guy handed acquisitions to someone quieter and went back to running the company. Fifteen years on, that company is publicly traded, one of the biggest homebuilders in the country.

    The other guy didn’t fare quite as well. Overconfidence turned into overleverage, and overleverage turned into prison.

    He’s out now. I won’t be knocking down his door looking to do business again, although you never say never. As a broker you don’t always get to choose.

    Jim Camp writes about “okayness” in Start With No. In any interaction, only one person gets to feel completely okay. Your job is making sure it’s the other guy.

    (You can buy Start With No here)

    If my client had just let the other man have his moment, instead of matching him move for move, it may have been different. Not that day, probably. The numbers were too far apart for that. But there’s a real chance we’re doing business with those investors again down the road, instead of never speaking to them again.

    If you remember the old TV show Columbo, he solved every case for the same reason. He walked in looking rumpled and half a step behind, and the guilty party relaxed just enough to talk too much.

    That’s the whole move. You don’t have to be less capable. You just have to stop trying to prove it so much.

    I’ve watched it play out both ways enough times to trust it. The guy who needs the room to know he’s the smartest one in it almost always ends up negotiating against himself. The one who can let that go usually walks out with the better deal, and sometimes a second chance at one he didn’t get the first time.

    Buy the book, and learn the system. It’s not hard and doesn’t require you to become some sort of master communicator or smooth talker (thank God).

    Get It Here

    PS- That link goes through Amazon, and I’m an affiliate. Doesn’t cost you a dime more, but if you click through and buy the book, or anything else while you’re there, I get a small commission.

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  • The Open Shirt Rule

    The Open Shirt Rule

    You can be legally right and still be the problem.

    Even if you don’t follow soccer, you’ve probably caught some of the World Cup coverage this month. One thing that keeps coming up: visitors are surprised by what kind of country this actually is.

    If all you knew was social media, you’d think we’re at each other’s throats. Police and immigration checkpoints on every corner. Nobody happy to be here. The place a mess.

    Then people show up and it’s nowhere close to that.

    It’s nice watching that land on someone in real time. You’d think it might make the rest of us put the phones down. Stop getting ourselves worked up over whatever someone decided to be offended by this week.

    You’d think that. You’d be wrong.

    A little over a week ago, a woman in Celina said a local restaurant made her leave for breastfeeding her infant. She posted about it. It went everywhere. People who weren’t in the building had a lot to say about how we’ve apparently traveled back in time a hundred years.

    The owner, also not in the building that day, said it was a miscommunication and that breastfeeding has never been against their policy. That part got considerably less attention.

    It made the paper, which tells you something on its own. Read the article and what you mostly get is one woman’s account, repeated back as fact, plus some comments from people online. The owner’s side is in there, technically. A video statement, summarized. Her first name. No last name. Strange, for a story where the reporter supposedly tried to reach her.

    If you’d actually talked to her, you’d probably have that. Or you could have asked around, it’s no secret who owns the place and she’s reasonably prominent around town.

    I don’t know what happened in that restaurant. Neither does anyone who wasn’t there, which is most of the internet. What people will walk away remembering isn’t the truth. It’s just who got cast as the villain.

    On the breastfeeding question itself: I don’t know a single person who’s bothered by it, or thinks it should be against the rules anywhere. I know plenty of people who believe in being considerate when you can be. Those aren’t the same position, and treating them like they are is how you end up shouting at people who already agree with you.

    You’re allowed to open carry in Texas. I think that’s a real right and I’m not interested in arguing about it. But when I see a guy walking through Walmart with a pistol on his hip for no particular reason, I don’t read that as confidence. I read it as someone hoping somebody says something so he gets to be right about it.

    Same instinct, different subject. You’re allowed to do the thing. Doing it the most visible way possible, without consideration for others, isn’t really about the thing anymore. Maybe the other person is wrong, doesn’t hurt you to accommodate them.

    Do what you need to do. Just notice when you’ve stopped doing it for the reason you started.

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  • Things Change. That’s Not the Problem.

    Things Change. That’s Not the Problem.

    The schedule changed. Nobody called.

    My daughter started her first job recently. Retail. Big store.

    She’s a couple weeks in. Shows up on time, good attitude, does what she’s asked. In retail, that combination already puts you ahead of a significant portion of the workforce. The industry runs around 60% annual turnover. No-call-no-shows are a daily problem for store managers. Someone who just reliably shows up is one less thing to worry about.

    Which means they’ll notice. And eventually they’ll start asking more of her. She’s already getting way more hours than she initially expected. That’s fine. That’s how it works. You accommodate when you can, especially when you’re new. You never know who’s watching or where people end up. I have clients who’ve hired six-figure salespeople out of fast food drive-thrus because someone made an impression.

    But there’s a line.

    She has a friend leaving the country. Going away party scheduled around my daughter’s work schedule. She was off at 4, plenty of time. Except she looked back at the schedule and her shift had been moved. Hours later. Nobody asked. Nobody called. It was just different.

    That’s not a scheduling issue. That’s a respect issue.

    She was upset. I was able to talk her through how to approach it and she got things switched back. The boss said the only reason she changed it was that my daughter had written “open to any hours” on her application. Which is true. But a reasonable person knows that if you’re scheduled off, you’re not just sitting around waiting to work. You’re living your life. Sometimes a change is no big deal. Sometimes it’s a huge deal.

    Things change. The market moves. A buyer falls through. A timeline shifts. I’ve seen deals that looked simple get complicated fast and complicated ones come together out of nowhere. That’s just how it works and there’s no point pretending otherwise.

    But there’s a difference between things changing and someone changing things on you without a conversation.

    If something shifts that affects your timeline, your plans, what you thought was going to happen, you’re going to hear it from me first. Not after the fact. Not when it’s already done. You’re not going to look at the schedule one day and find out it’s been changed.

    You control this. That part doesn’t move.

    I can’t promise everything goes according to plan. Nobody can. What I can promise is that you’re never going to feel like you woke up and someone had already decided something for you.

    PS – Most landowners aren’t planning to sell today.

    But things can change quickly. When the time comes, the people who already understand the market tend to make better decisions.

    That’s what the MBR Land Reality Check is for. It looks at nearby sales, current listings, development pressure, and the details affecting value that aren’t obvious from the road.

    Is it a bad idea to know where things stand?

    Get Yours Here

    PPS- If you’re not ready for a Reality Check but enjoy reading about land, markets, and negotiation, you can sign up below and get these posts in your inbox.

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